


your scent is in the air (it's everywhere)

by Trish47



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Ben Solo, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Car Sex, Customer Service & Tech Support, Dirty Talk, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Marking, Masturbation in Bathroom, Mating Bites, No Breeding Kink, No Pregnancy, Omega Rey (Star Wars), Omega Verse, POV Multiple, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Riding, Shameless Smut, Swearing, Voice Kink, Yearning, breakthrough heat, college friends to lovers, exasperated Hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27225406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trish47/pseuds/Trish47
Summary: Alpha-scented car fresheners come with many perks: they can keep an Omega alert on a long drive, tame anxiety, and provide a general sense of security. Or so the package claims. Rey's is defective. It's too strong—strong enough that she has to pull over and call for help.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 45
Kudos: 675
Collections: Ijustfellintothissendhelp





	your scent is in the air (it's everywhere)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [commandercrouton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/commandercrouton/gifts).



> This is a much belated birthday gif to my bestie CommanderCrouton, who had the good luck to receive an air freshener in the shape of Ben's face as a gift. And I thought. . .what if? This has been a blast to write and I'm so happy to get to share it!
> 
> Shout-out and many thanks to meeda for beta-reading this and helping me squeeze in some extra sweetness. More thanks to harpiaharpyja for keeping me company while writing and encouraging me.

Most days, there aren’t any problems. Customers are happy with their Pocket Alpha scent diffusers. They’re usually more than happy. Typically, he fields calls for gross product orders after a particular line takes off and handles the occasional rabid Omega who’s trying to track down the Alpha who supplied the original scent. While he’s a Beta through and through, Poe’s got plenty of charm and a way with talking to people. He can usually calm anyone down or, on the flip side, entice them to buy an excessive amount of Alpha-scented products.

Of course, there are blips.

A distress light turns on over one of the call center’s cubicles, and Poe makes his way down the aisle to Kaydel Connix, one of their newest team members. Unlike most of the office’s demographics, Kaydel is just like him: a Beta. That has to be why she talks to him like an equal, and not like he’s her manager. It’s not a problem in his eyes, though. He likes her spunk.

“Dameron,” she starts, tugging off one side of her headset, “I have an Omega on the line who’s demanding she speak with management. It sounds like an emergency.”

“Emergency?” He’s curious, but huffs in disbelief. “Probably just a ploy to get information on our donor Alphas.”

Kaydel’s blonde buns stay firmly in place as she shakes her head. “She’s saying she’s ready to sue.”

Any time possible litigation comes up in conversation, Poe’s interest skyrockets. He turns on his heels as he rushes out an instruction: “Patch her over.”

Ensconced again in his office, he pulls up the logging screens on his computer, slips on his headset, and smiles into the mouthpiece. The clients can always hear his smile. “Good morning, Miss, this is Poe Dameron speaking with you now. My associate explained you’re in a state of emer—”

A voice, nearly incomprehensible in light of her accent and her fury, cuts him off: “Your product is fucking defective rubbish!”

It isn’t the first time he’s ever had a client scream at him, but the vehemence with this one is especially strong. He clears his throat to eject the remnants of his previous sentence and starts anew. “So that I may better serve you, can you elaborate?”

“Trash! Garbage! Utter crap!” There’s an audible groan on the other end of the line before she adds, “I can’t believe I wasted money on this piece of junk.”

Poe bites the inner part of his cheek, fighting the unprofessional urge to quip back at her. Instead, he redirects her to his real question. “What do you believe to be the problem with the product?” He clicks on a computer file and reads off the screen. “I see you recently purchased the Pocket Alpha car freshener in our Knights of Serenity line.”

“It’s overpowering.”

“The scent?”

“Yes,” she all but growls into the speaker. “If this sends me into a flare, I’m going to sue you and your company into the next dimension!”

Poe combs his voice into stern disapproval. He may not be an actual Alpha, but he’s gone through a few training modules under company directives on how to make clients believe he is. “Miss, while we pride ourselves on our unique, appealing scents, our products only contain trace amounts of actual Alpha pheromones. They are designed for low output so that they last and, specifically, so they don’t overwhelm clients with sensitive receptors.”

“You fucked up then.” A rush of expletives fills his ear before she attempts to explain. “Look, I’ve only been in the car an hour with this thing and it’s destroying me. I need help.”

Poe rolls his eyes at the exaggerated description, but her plea at the end does strike him as genuine. “Miss, if you believe you’re in a medical emergency, please hang up and dial 911.”

“I’m in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. The nearest Omega hospital is hours away,” the woman argues. “I need the Alpha.”

Ah, there it is. The ask. He deadpans his practiced response: “We are unable to give out details about our pheromone donors.”

“I didn’t say I needed the details. I need the Alpha. Here. Now.” A whine punctuates each of the last three words, and then she goes silent for a few moments.

Knowing he has to keep speaking or have his boss ding him on the quality of the call, Poe prompts, “Miss, are you there?”

“Shit.” A few seconds pass, and then, “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Miss?”

“Get your director or whoever you report to on the line,” she demands. Did she sound this icy when she was on the phone with Kaydel?

“My supervisor is currently unavailable,”—in no way is he paging in Holdo on this call— “but if you are unsatisfied with my call performance, you are welcome to fill out the client survey at the conclusion of—”

The sound that cuts him off is feral and deafening. He cringes beneath the headset, pulling one side down in case she bellows into the phone again. When the ringing stops, he hears her panting, though he doesn’t know if it is from rage or from pain.

It doesn’t matter. That sound finally convinces him that he has to do something to help this woman. Maybe Alphas are more attuned to the natural distress signals from Omegas, but they’re all human beings. Poe can recognize the unadulterated anguish in her cry.

“Miss, I need you to—”

“If you say ‘calm down,’ I am going to reach in and strangle you through this screen.”

Poe continues in a softer voice, “I need you to tell me if you’re in a safe place.”

There’s silence on the other line, then rustling like her phone is rubbing against her clothing. This time when she speaks, her voice is more controlled, though still biting. “Does the family bathroom in a truck stop count?”

“If it has a lock, it will do.” Poe opens a chat window on his computer and begins typing a message while he asks, “May I ask what scent profile you selected for the freshener?”

“Zen. Ren. I don’t know. Something stupid like that.” She huffs. “You really need to get some better sounding names.”

Poe’s fingers die on the keys the moment she confirms the product. In his sweetest voice, his upper lip already forming into a cringe at her predictable response, he asks, “May I put you on a brief hold?”

“Are you kidding? You’re going to hang up on me,” she accuses. “I called you because I need help. Don’t you get that?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“This piece of shit air freshener has me curled into a ball on the fucking floor of a public bathroom. My jeans are soaked with slick. I’m a fucking mess and this is your protocol? Put me on _hold_?”

“Miss, I am not going to hang up on you.”

“The hell you aren’t.”

He licks his lips in order not to tut at her. “What if I promise to get you the Alpha?”

Her breath hitches. “My Alpha?”

“Yes.”

A long whimper precedes her, “Okay.”

“Thank you.”

Immediately, Poe places the call on hold and pushes a speed-dial straight to the donor of the newly released Kylo Ren scent line. He just so happens to also be the man in charge of the entire Pocket Alpha operation.

“Dameron.”

Poe slings back the greeting. “Solo.”

“If this is about lunch—”

“It’s not. It’s about your scent. It’s made an Omega—”

“We call them clients.”

“—go into a tailspin flare up.”

His benign reminder becomes a sharp correction. “Impossible.”

“It sure should be, but I’m on the line with her now. She sounds legit.”

His tone changes from pure incredulity to annoyance. “And you’re bringing me on this call for what reason?”

Poe sucks his teeth. His charm has never worked on Ben, so he doesn’t attempt to sugarcoat the truth. “I’m pretty sure if you don’t talk her down, she’s gonna sue our asses. And we already have the FDA chomping at the bit to bring us down so. . .”

“Give me her name. I’ll talk to her.”

Poe has to click through another folder to get to the client information. He can’t believe he forgot to ask. Worse, he knows he’s showing his error by making Ben wait for the details. Finally, he finds it.

“Rey Niima,” he states. “Not sure if that’s Knee-ma or Nigh-ma though.”

“Niima,” he whispers in the first pronunciation.

In an instant, his headset goes offline. Glancing down at this call log, Poe can see Rey Niima has disappeared from his system.

Good, he thinks. Let her Alpha deal with it.

* * *

Wait music is intolerable under the best of circumstances; in Rey’s current condition, it takes all the willpower she has not to send the phone flying into the wall of the restroom. She has to maintain her composure. Losing her phone means losing her only opportunity to connect with her Alpha, not that she trusts the man—a Beta, surely—who put her on hold.

What if she doesn’t get to talk to the Alpha? Does it even matter if he gets on the phone with her, really? Her primal voice whines out a _yes_ in the back of her mind, promising that the Alpha’s voice is exactly what she needs to hear.

_What is he possibly going to be able to do?_ Rey argues back.

She wasn’t lying when she said she was in the middle of nowhere, stuck at a 24-hour rest stop that technically is for long-haul truckers only. She’ll be lucky if she gets out of here and finds her car still parked across two spaces in front of the building. Fuck. If it gets towed, she’s screwed. Everything she owns is in that car. Rey doubts the impound lot will water her plants until she can get there and pay the fine.

How did she end up here?

Oh yeah, a fucking air freshener.

An automated recording cuts through the brassy elevator music to thank her for her patience, and Rey loses it instantly. “Get back on the line you complete dimwitted asshat!”

“Hello?”

The phone clatters to the ground as she startles over the abrupt greeting. She can hear the speaker asking if this is Rey Niima he has on the line, but she can’t seem to pick the phone up from the floor. Her hands are trembling. Desperately, she taps on the screen and hits the speaker button.

“H-hello?” she breathes. “Who is this?”

“I need to confirm your identity first, Miss.”

His tone is hard and clipped, almost agitated. He’s certainly not the charmer from earlier. The rough edge to his already deep timbre strokes her primal side like a heavy hand on her spine. But there’s something about the tonal quality, something deep and familiar. Achingly familiar.

“Yes,” she answers. “This is Rey Niima.”

“Niima, it’s me.”

If she weren’t already on the floor, she’d have fallen. Even so, the room spins and she raises one hand to her head to keep it steady. That voice is familiar for a reason. Just three little words and she’s flashing back to her freshman year at university. Only one person she met there began his messages like that—okay, only one person she knew left chronic, detailed voicemails at all.

“Ben?”

“It’s been a while, Rey.”

A delirious laugh escapes, but her body rebels against the notion of mirth in a time where it hungers to be filled with a different kind of happiness. She clutches her gut and clenches her teeth. “Yeah, sure has,” she rushes out. “Look, I’d love to chat, but I’m in the middle of a personal emergency. The idiot I was speaking with before told me he was putting on my. . .he was getting me someone who could help.”

“Poe may seem incompetent, but I assure you, he did his job.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Kylo Ren air freshener you purchased.”

“Yes. . .?"

“It’s a scent I created,” he explains, a note of possessiveness creeping in to color his next phrase: “It’s mine. My scent.”

“Your scent?” She lifts the hem of her t-shirt to wipe the sweat from her face, but one whiff of the fabric makes her whimper. It’s like the air freshener’s pheromones have seeped into her shirt, too. “But, you. . .you’re not an Alpha.”

“Not when you knew me. But it’s what I’ve become. Ay-Bee-Oh, the doctors call it: Adult Biomarker Onset.”

“You’re an Alpha.” The news that the quiet, bookish grad student she knew in her late teens—who didn’t even confront the cafe workers when they got his coffee order wrong—is now someone who bleeds testosterone and other delicious pheromones into the atmosphere is almost too much to grasp. And then Poe’s promise to get _her_ Alpha floats to the forefront of her thoughts. “Ben, do you think—?”

“That we could be mates?”

The word sends little shocks up and down her arms, but it wasn’t exactly where she was going with that sentence. “I was going to ask if you could—I know this is nuts and we haven’t seen each other in years and you’re probably with someone. Oh, shit, I didn’t think about that."

“Rey. Ask.”

She takes a deep breath at his gentle command. “Help me?”

His voice is muffled at first, like he’s holding his hand over the phone while shouting something short and to the point. Then he returns to regular volume, though a thread of worry belies his calm tone. “Tell me where you are. I’ll come to you.”

How can he promise something like that without hesitating? She could be in the Uffizi Gallery right now for all he knows. The last time they spoke, she was pursuing a degree in art restoration and spending her weekends combing through antique shops wherever her car would travel. She’d like to believe he thinks she went on to do all the things she’d dreamed about as an undergrad: polishing junk, or so he’d teasingly termed her ideal career.

As if his minor in repairing and translating manuscripts wasn’t the same thing. She’d never been able to reconcile the two paths he’d elected to take, clinical research and development being the other.

“I’m near Benson, North Carolina. Off I-40.”A small part of her wonders if he would still come for her even if she were half a world away. “There’s a rest stop.”

“That’s about thirty minutes from here.” His breathing has changed. It’s not quite panting, but it’s not quite stable either. He’s hustling. “Armie will make it twenty.”

“Who’s Armie?”

“He’s driving.”

“You’re not?”

“No, Rey. You have every ounce of my attention at the moment.” He lowers his voice to keep his next statement confidential. “I can hear it: your loneliness, your need.”

She whimpers at that because it’s true. “It’s never been this strong. Not so fast. I’m burning up,” she tells him, getting worked up even more. It doesn’t help her condition. “Every time I move, I’m empty, and it’s wrong. I shouldn’t be empty. I should have all of you. In me.” She gasps, then groans. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying any of this. You probably have a partner.”

“I don’t,” Ben immediately contradicts. “Will you do me a favor, sweet girl? I need you to find water. From a fountain, from the sink—wherever. Drink something for me.”

“Okay.”

Leaving the phone on the floor, she stands on wobbly legs, bracing one arm against the sink. No way is she risking going out in the public area to access a water fountain. When she’s had a long drink, she wipes her wet hand over her damp forehead, pressing her cool palm to her hot skin. It gives her a modicum of reason, enough to take in her current state.

Her jeans are useless. They’re plastered against her thighs by slick. Her t-shirt isn’t faring much better, sticking to her lower back and bunching in other awkward places. They need to go.

“What are you doing now, Rey?”

His question is innocent, but Rey can’t help the thrill it spikes in her system. She reaches for her fly and pops the button. “I’m taking off my pants.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re hot and sticky and completely soaked through. For fuck’s sake, Ben, why is this happening to me? It was a fucking air freshener.”

“I wish I had the answer to that, sweetheart.” The rasp in his voice is raw and thick. “But I’m going to fix it.”

The promise of his words makes her squeeze her eyes shut tight as she yanks her drenched panties down to her knees and cups herself. Hot, throbbing flesh pulses beneath her hand, so slick it makes her palm slide across her clit. She may want her question to sound seductive and enticing, but it comes out as a yelp, “How?”

A long silence follows her question. So long that she thinks the connection has dropped or her battery has died. Oh, shit, what if her battery runs out? But then his breath rattles into her ear, a damp, heavy thing that makes the skin on her arms and thighs erupt in tiny bumps.

“You want me to tell you?”

_Yes. Fuck yes._ In this moment, it feels like all she’s ever wanted in the world: to listen to Benjamin Solo’s deep, thick voice narrating exactly how he plans to fuck her when he gets to her. Two fingers slip inside of her, and she moans.

“You have an audience,” she manages to say, clinging to reason.

“You think I give two flying fucks what Armie thinks? He’s signed an NDA. If he breathes a word of this, he knows it’s not my lawyer who will be in touch with him, but my fist introducing itself to his jaw.”

“Hey—” The squeak of protest is quickly silenced, and Rey can only imagine the death glare Ben is giving him in the rearview mirror.

“Rey, please,” Ben continues softly. “I’m still too far away. Let me forecast the storm I’m going to sweep you into.”

She laughs, but it’s only a puff of air. “Okay.”

What she expects is him to launch into some of the raunchiest dirty talk she’s ever heard—comparable to the stuff she listens to online when she needs a quick wank. That isn’t what she gets. Instead, it’s a piece of their shared history he begins with: “Do you remember the party? The one where neither of us wanted to be because it was in some frat basement off campus and the whole house smelled like beer and piss?”

“Ben, I think you’re bad at this.”

“Answer the question, please.”

Did she remember it? Yeah. More vividly than she probably should considering how much alcohol she’d consumed that evening. But how could she forget it? “You sent a guy to the hospital for trying to take me upstairs.”

“And after?”

Rey’s fingers pause their stroking as she tries to bring the memory before her. Ben, more pissed than she’d ever seen him. Her body had vibrated over the display of strength and protectiveness, never mind that she’d never have slept with the nameless frat boy anyway. She was just waiting to knee him at the top of the stairs in hope that he might tumble down them too.

“Rey?”

She hums to let him know she’s there, savoring the thought. “I kissed you.”

“Yes, you did.”

It was a sloppy kiss, she’s sure. But the thing she remembers most is, “It didn’t lead anywhere.”

“Did you want it to?”

She doesn’t have to think about it. Though there’s suddenly a lump in her throat, she pushes her answer around it. “Yes.”

“Me too.” His confession is firm, sure. Then his voice takes on a different shade, one that has her thumbing her swollen clit and grasping a breast in her other hand immediately. “And I’ve been thinking about where I’d have wanted it to go ever since. All the possible ways we could be together. How many times I could make you come with just my tongue. My fingers. How exquisite your cunt would feel clenching around my cock.”

She tries to bury the loud whine she makes into her shoulder. When that doesn’t work, she bends her neck forward and bites the front of her t-shirt, seeking some kind of muzzle for the noises she’s making.

“So, Rey, I want you to understand that in the ten minutes we have before I make it to that rest stop, I’m only going to be able to give you one fantasy.”

“Please, Ben. Tell me.”

“The first time I knew I wanted to fuck you—not in the saccharine way with cuddles and telling you how wonderful you are over and over—no, the first time I wanted to _fuck_ you until you cried out my name was at Homecoming. You dragged me to that football game, made me freeze my ass off, and the only way I could imagine warming up was inside of you.”

“You were glowering at me.”

“I was thinking of how I’d brace you against the bleachers under the band and thrust into you in tandem with the drumline.”

“Fuck.” Her fingers leave her entrance and circle her clit furiously, like she can hear the bass line from years ago play through her mind. Maybe that’s just the pulse in her ears though. She can picture his intense gaze from that day, and her solution to his scowl. “I—I gave you my scarf,” she utters between strokes. “So you wouldn’t be cold.”

“Yes, you did. It shocked me, that sweetness,” he says. “I kept it on all night. I didn’t realize at the time—what that might have meant. It smelled like cinnamon sticks and a deep, spicy wine. I thought you’d spilled something on it. But it was you, Rey. Your scent. Even then it captivated me. So good. So delicious. I can’t wait to smell that around me again, on me.”

She whimpers, clawing at her clit with desperate fingers.

“Are you rubbing yourself, Rey?”

“Have to,” she stammers, hips bucking up from the ground to try and add even more pressure to her efforts. “Your voice. It’s all I have.”

“Not for long, sweetheart.”

"What else? When you get here," she pleads, not sure she's making sense. She's in a vacuum of desire. The only thing she knows is how the scratch in his voice scrapes over her raw edges like a thumb parting a seam to test its strength. Except it’s her thumb, her fingers. For now.

“Breathe.”

“No,” she cries, needing to take in oxygen to protest. She’s so close. “Tell me.”

He relents, voice turning into a low murmur. “I’m going to give you exactly what you need, Rey. Spread you out and stuff you full—”

She keens at the image. Her shoulder blades and shoe heels grind against the cool tile, straining to lift herself higher, feeling how tight she is around her fingers. Gravity trails slick over her ass, dripping onto the floor, scaling up her back in slow vines.

“Ben, I need you.”

“I’m almost there,” he soothes her. “A few more minutes and I’ll have my hands on your hips. I’ll guide you right onto my cock. Sink inside you and your dripping cunt.”

“So wet,” she confirms.

“You’re a puddle for me, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I like that. That’s how I want you.” If possible, her body complies by sending another rush of slick to coat her fingers. “Messy. Dripping. I want you to soak every surface you touch.”

“You—you do?” The fluids and the mountain of laundry that follows after them normally make her self-conscious. She’s never been with someone who actually. . . _likes_ that her heats turn her into an unending fountain.

“Baby, when I get there, I’m going to make you come so hard, they’ll have to break out a mop.”

She peaks then, a smile tugging the corners of her mouth from an “O” into something sharper. Body trembling, her hips jut up—once, twice, three times—as she finishes and lowers herself on to the damp spot she’s created.

Unaware of any sound she released upon climax, she shivers when she hears an approving growl over the phone. "Fuck, that almost made me come."

She turns her head into her shoulder, even though he isn't there to see her blush over such a statement. Her voice is still thready and high-pitched when she speaks. "Save it? For me?" Her cunt clenches around nothing and she whines. "I want all your cum inside of me, Ben."

"Anything you want, name it. It's yours," he tells her, adding, "But tell me now, before I lose my wits and my cock to you."

"A last request?" The morbid title emphasized the pact's severity. It was something pairs negotiated before spending heats and ruts together. Similar to Betas making safe, sane, and consensual agreements, the last request took it one step further. An Omega could ask for anything and the Alpha's brain would lock onto it. Even in the haze of fucking for hours, the request would remain at the forefront of their thoughts. Most Omegas she knew used it to tell their partner whether they wanted to be knotted, bitten, or marked.

Rey wants all of those things. The only thing she doesn't want is to be fucked to the edge of collapse in a truck stop bathroom.

"Somewhere else," she says, cementing her request. "I want you to take me from this place and knot me where it's safe."

"Anything else?"

"Hurry."

He chuckles softly, darkly. "That one I can accommodate immediately. Unlock the door, Rey. I'm here."

* * *

A deep, full-bodied scent trickles out from the door’s seams like smoke where the room beyond is on fire. It’s thick and spicy, like a pinot noir with undercurrents of clove and tobacco. Before he knows it, his hand is strangling the chrome handle, bearing down with all his upper body strength as if he can bend it to his will.

He can’t, of course. It’s locked. Nearly thirty years later, he finally empathizes with the wolf from the nursery rhyme, salivating with hunger, huffing and puffing down barriers to get to his meal. Ben knows he doesn’t have that lung capacity, but if he could just break this handle. . .

“You—. You’re—” Rey begins with a stammer that ends in a whimper. Ben’s hand clamps down until the metal will leave an impression in his flesh. “I can’t.”

Her sudden hesitation doesn’t align with the need he heard in her voice, in her plea for him to hurry. Maybe something spooked her. He whispers into the phone, “Don’t be afraid.” It’s probably something the wolf would say, too, but he means it sincerely.

She laughs. Each time it’s happened during their call, it’s made his cock twitch. The light, airy sound makes him think of how she’ll gasp when he’s buried inside her.

“Ben, I’m half naked,” she explains. “I can’t get my jeans on. I can’t open the door like this.”

He swallows down the lump in his throat, tips his head to cradle the phone on his shoulder, and makes quick work of the buttons going down the opening of his wool car coat. It reaches his thighs, so he knows it will cover her modestly enough to get her out of the building. Thankfully he’d elected to wear close-fitting boxer briefs that morning; it helps make his erection slightly less noticeable in his slacks.

“Crack the door. I’m going to hand you my coat.”

“Remember your promise,” she responds, though he can hear the deadbolt unlocking and the pin pop loose as she turns the handle from the other side.

Slowly, the door opens two inches, then three, but he doesn’t see her. A hand with a chipped manicure appears, palm up. “Hurry up, I’m holding my breath.”

Smart. He should have thought of that. Catching scant whiffs of her scent around the doorframe made his blood hot. The stream that hits him now makes him lean his head against the wood. It’s more potent, more overwhelming, than the fragrance section in a department store at Christmas. Except it isn’t Chanel No. 5 or Dior’s J’adore filtering into his nose and lighting up every cell in his brain’s olfactory region. It’s the musk of her release, the salt of her sweat, and the baser scent that brings him back to that football game years ago.

“Rey.” Speaking her name softly, he raises the coat to her hand. “Put this on.”

She takes the heavy wool outerwear and moves to shut the door. The toe of Ben’s shoe stops it from closing all the way, and a low growl warns her it’s unacceptable to be separated from her any longer. At least, that’s what he hopes his short “No” communicates.

There’s a cry from her side, then some scuffling before a muted, “Fuck.”

“Are you okay?”

“Alpha—”

He’s inside before she can get another word out, though he lurches to a stop right across the threshold. He forgets all about the door and the open lobby behind them. Good thing most truckers make a beeline for the men’s room.

She’s an utter mess. On the ground instead of standing, she’s surrounded by a deflated cloud of 1-ply she’s pulled from the roll while she’s been cloistered in the restroom. Her hair is still in multiple buns, but whole chunks have come loose to accompany the wisps around her face. She’s managed to get the coat on, but none of the buttons are fastened, leaving him with a clear view of her perfect legs—toned and tan and longer than they have any right to be—and a glimpse of the apex where they join. The slick shining on her inner thighs draws his gaze for several deep breaths, until a hand with all but its fingertips covered by his coat’s sleeve travels down over her belly toward her center.

Her other fingers grip the collar of his coat, holding it to her nose. It’s buried in the spot where his mating gland rubs against the fabric. “It’s even stronger.” She takes another open-mouthed breath, tongue darting out to brush against the wool. “I’m so wet.”

She’s wet? He’s about to combust. Before his brain can go into that feral place of no return when he’s mid-rut, he ekes out a firm, “I’m here for you.”

He approaches her like the creature taking its first steps after rising from Frankenstein’s table, like he doesn’t know how his arms and legs work anymore. The only body part he knows how to use is burning between his legs, pressed against his right thigh like the torch he should fear.

“Take me.”

His shoes trample her paper cloud. It swirls along the ground when he bends to lift her into his arms, adjusting the coat to make sure she’s covered from any curious eyes. Upon quitting the family restroom, he realizes there’s a piece of toilet paper trailing after them like a veil. He steps on the end and snaps it off so they won’t draw a map directly to his waiting car.

Rey’s face is turned into his neck, nosing at his pulse point, kissing the joint where his jaw connects to the rest of his skull. She’s trying to coax him into relaxing, into loosening his jaw and opening his mouth to feed her with kisses or praise or assurances. But he can’t. He has to keep his jaw clenched and his mouth shut or he’ll never make it to the car. His vision is already tunneling to block out anything but the few feet in front of him.

That must be why the car and Armitage appear so suddenly.

“What the hell?” he asks, followed quickly by, “Is she okay?”

“I’ve got her,” he responds brusquely, bending his knees to search for the door handle to the backseat. When Armie steps closer to help, Ben tightens his grip on Rey and snaps, “I don’t need you. Get the fuck out of here.”

The man’s eyes narrow. “Where the hell am I supposed to go?”

Ben manages to wrench open the door and kneels on the cushion as he maneuvers Rey inside. She burrows deeper when he begins to pull away, one arm curving over his neck and clamping down like a Venus flytrap, her fingertips twining his scarf around her hand. “Alpha. . .”

Ben shushes her, stroking her hair. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to make sure we have privacy.” He leans down until his lips skim across her cheek to the base of her ear. “I want you all to myself.”

Her body doesn’t shiver; it jerks. Up against him, bumping pelvises, where his erection is painfully constrained. He has to bracket her hips with his palms and push her down into the cushion to break their contact. Otherwise he’s worried he’ll shove his pants down and rut into her with his ass hanging out in full view. At least they parked at the very end of the lot.

Though it nearly kills him, he draws away, smoothing his hands over her legs as he stands upright again to address the only thing keeping him from plunging into a fantasy he’s had since graduating and leaving for his new position.

Armie’s hands are on his hips, one foot stamped out on the asphalt. “Well?”

“I don’t know how else to tell you I need you to fuck off for half an hour,” he growls, pulling his shoes off one by one and tossing them on the ground. He reaches for his belt. As soon as the tongue is loose, he hooks his thumbs into his pants and boxer briefs, shucking them down his legs in one fluid motion.

Armie’s nose tips to the sky, one hand coming up to cover his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Ben.”

“Be back in a half hour. You can drive us to a hotel.”

“Can’t this wait?” The question isn’t so much a challenge as expressing his defeated exasperation. He’s already stepped back onto the curb.

“I’ve waited long enough.”

It’s the last thing he says before turning toward the car, naked from the waist down. His hard cock and heavy balls sway slightly with the motion, happy to be free of the confining fabric. More beads of precome have leaked from his slit. He’s so ready for this. Ready to feel her around him, to fill her with his cock and his hot spend, ready to calm the fire within her.

She’s rearranged herself on the seat, somehow scrabbling out of the car coat. Her feet are tucked beneath her, out of the way so he can have more space to sprawl out.

Even with the extra room, there’s only so many logistical ways he can fuck her in a mid-sized sedan. These cars weren’t made for people of his stature, and they certainly weren’t made for two frenzied bodies wrapping around one another as they attempt to become one.

But this is only another type of triage before he gets her to a hotel room and can treat her the way he wants. Right now, this is about stuffing her full of his knot and dousing her down to cool her off. He slides onto the bench seat, shutting the door being him.

“Come here, Rey,” he instructs, taking her hand and helping her swing one leg over his body so she’s straddling his lap. Even though she’s shorter than him, her hair brushes the roof of the car’s interior. “You’re going to have to ride me.”

She rocks her hips forward, rubbing against his erection and takes it gently in hand. Ben grunts at the touch; he should be doing the same to her—touching, caressing, undressing—but his hands are curled over the edges of the seat so he can hang on to some sense of cognitive ability.

Rey places his cock against her stomach, smearing fluids over his shaft and onto her skin. Her voice drops to a soft husk, “I’m ready.”

“Are you?” He smiles. “You always were outrageously confident.”

Her head falls against his, nudging his nose with hers. “Not when it came to you. If I hadn’t been afraid then. . .”

Both hands abandon their tethers and tangle in her soft brown hair instead. “Are you afraid now?”

“No.” she whispers.

Her breath is warm against his lips, and he becomes achingly aware that he has yet to kiss her. That’s something he should do before this goes anywhere else. Angling her head, he hovers over her mouth for a scant second before sealing their lips together. Even after all these years, she tastes the same as that night at the frat house. Sure, there’s no lingering aftertaste of Natural Lite, but what he found beyond that—her deeper essence—remains unchanged. It was dangerous then, but wholly lethal now.

Their tongues join in, stroking, sucking, licking. When she nips at the corners of his mouth, he groans, feeling himself swell where he’s wedged between their bodies. One hand snakes down from her hair, over her back and rear, and reaches between her legs. Rey cries out against his mouth when his middle finger runs a line through her wetness.

“You are ready,” he confirms. “So wet and ready and wanting. So absolutely perfect.”

“Want it in,” she pants, inching back on his thighs ever so slightly. “Put it inside me.”

He uses three fingers to scoop slick from where it flows from her, bringing it around to coat himself, but he doesn’t make any move to align the tip to her opening. “I want you to do it, Rey.”

“What?”

“Sink that pretty cunt down on my cock. Adjust. Take your time.” He straightens his spine to bring his lips to her ear and whisper, “Because once you’ve taken me to the knot, I’m going to rut into you like we’re under those bleachers.”

There she goes again, body twitching at his words. Her uncontrolled response makes the part of his brain between his eyes go fuzzy. Soon, everything will be a blur.

Without a word, she pushes to her knees, takes him in hand once more, and rubs him along her slicked skin from clit to center. Then she holds him in place as she slides down his shaft, her hot walls stretching around him. Though she’s wet enough to ruin the seats, there’s still a lot of him to accommodate.

“Shit,” she breathes, pausing midway to look at him. “You feel amazing.”

He brings a hand to the center of her chest; beneath her t-shirt, her heart beats to the pace of a samba. “That’s my line, sweetheart.”

Rey trails her fingers across his shoulders and up his neck, cupping his jaw on either side to bring his lips back to hers. The movement causes him to slip out of her until just his head is left. Ben shudders, fighting the urge to grip her hips and drive her down again. Rey, though, has that handled. As she takes his bottom lip between her teeth, she sheathes herself over him completely, the backs of her slick thighs pressing against his.

They both groan.

“Thank fuck,” she murmurs, rolling her hips forward as an experiment.

She’s so warm and wet that he’s starting to feel feverish himself. It’s more exquisite than he ever dreamed, and he’d had a recurring scene play through his mind on a weekly basis since they’d parted ways. His imagination was nowhere close to the real thing. Part of him wants to remember every moment, every gasp, every slap of flesh against flesh, every utterance of his name.

But the nature of the beast is to forget. Only mates keep their memories.

Mates. The thought alone makes his hands wander to her nape, brushing back the curtain of fallen hair to reveal the gland there. It’s slightly raised, like a blister, and swollen with a liquid that’s described as the sweetest drink known to man, more sacred to some than ceremonial blood from the cup. His thumb circles its rounded edge, the perfect size for a mouth to fit over.

“Do it,” Rey hisses, breaking his focus away and back to her flushed face. “Kiss me there.”

He tuts. “Not yet.”

She lifts her ass, then sinks back down with a whine. “When?”

His hands grip the widest part of her waist, forcing her to still. He holds her there, waiting until she squirms and meets his eyes. Once he has every part of her attention, he pushes into her in one long, slow thrust, testing out the angle. He adjusts his feet on either side of the car’s median and repeats the motion with more force. Rey’s eyes widen, pupils dilating in the twilight streaming in through the windows. She clamps onto his forearms but doesn’t remove them. If anything, it’s like she’s buckling down.

“When, Ben?” she asks again, an edge in her voice he hasn’t heard before. It’s desperate like when she’d been on the phone, but with something else tied to the end. Impatience? Yearning?

He slams into her again and she moans. That’s when it clicks. The note he hears is pleasure. Glands are nearly more sensitive than the equipment below their waists. If he kisses her gland, sucks it between his lips, traces it with his tongue. . .she’ll come.

His hips pick up the pace while his arms help keep her steady above him. “Soon,” he whispers in answer. Then, to distract her, he asks, “Do you want my knot, Rey? Can you take it, my little Omega?”

The thick bulb is already butting against her with every thrust, stretching her little by little. In turn, her cunt covers him and the seat beneath him in slick. “Y-yes. Please, Alpha.”

Sweat trails down the sides of his face near his hairline as he truly sets to work. Their rocking causes the car to bounce on its joints, squeaking distantly. The windows have completely fogged, giving them further privacy for the final act.

“Hold on to me,” he tells her, coaching her arms to wrap around the back of his neck. The underside of one brushes his own mating gland, causing him to to buck up almost violently against her. It’s enough to nudge his knot inside of her, locking him in place, but not enough to make him come. He’s not there yet.

Rey is, though. She cries out at the abrupt intrusion and convulses in jerky spasms, hugging him tighter to her chest. Ben keeps one hand on her hip to guide his now limited thrusts, but spans his other fingers across her back, drawing her closer, too.

She babbles words into his ear as he keeps pushing deeper, withdrawing only an inch or so before burying himself balls-deep. His name, curses, and the words _mark me_ fall past her lips in repeated strings like the chorus of a song.

It’s time. He roots into the damp hair clinging to the side of her neck and finds the object of his search. Gently, he places his mouth on top of the small hump, sucking the spot with hardly any pressure. He doesn’t want to go too far.

Rey doesn’t seem concerned. “Bite me,” she rasps, near tears and writhing in his lap when he uses his tongue to caress the gland. “Ben, please.”

There’s not much internal debate after that. His Omega wants to be bitten. She wants to be marked. He’d be a shitty Alpha not to fulfill her request; it’s the reason he’s wired like this: to protect, to pleasure, to pamper. Denying her would wound him.

So he bites down.

The world goes gold. Not black or white. He hasn’t passed out. He’s tasted the waters of a higher plane, ambrosia of mythic proportions. This is what the gods fed on; this is the nectar they hoarded for themselves.

Sweet, sweet intoxication.

He realizes then that he’s coming, too. Releasing more spend than he knew possible. It coats her until she’s impossibly full and then he _keeps going_. Still caught by his teeth at her neck, Rey shakes as another wave of pleasure wracks her tanned body. She claws at his chest and tugs at his hair, rocking her hips back and forth over his lap.

“I can feel it inside me,” she whimpers. “All of that cum. Just for me. Thank you.”

Ben releases her gland, having drunk his fill. He licks a runaway droplet from her collarbone, then uses his hands to bring her in for a long kiss. It’s not as feverish as before, but it still leaves his heart racing.

“I should be completely spent,” he murmurs against her soft lips, smiling.

She smiles back. “I’m not sure how much more I could hold.”

“I meant tired. I should be ready to collapse.”

“You’re not?”

He gathers her against him, tucking her head underneath his chin. Carefully, he combs back errant stands of her hair, gathering it in one place. “It’s strange, but I feel so alert?”

“Mmm, that’s for me,” she whispers in explanation. “I don’t think there’s anything you need to protect me from here, though.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

He runs his hands up and down her back in soothing strokes. “Well, I guess that makes sense. You’d be vulnerable now. Tuckered out after being fucked so good.” He kisses the top of her head. “You were fantastic, by the way.”

She shifts, drawing moans from both of their throats. Fingers walk up his pec one step at a time. “I couldn’t have been as good as you.”

“Untrue.”

Rey shivers in his arms, sending two signals to his brain: first, he’s satisfied the primal side of her that frets and fevers when it grows hungry. Her skin is cool, almost chilled. That’s the second signal his brain processes. The solution: warm her up.

His coat lies crumpled in the foot-well, too far for him to reach while locked inside of her. His scarf, though, is still on the seat beside them. He picks it up and loops the soft material around her shoulders, gently peeling damp strands of hair from her neck and lifting it over the scarf so it rests against her skin.

Her hand wraps around one end and begins to bring it to her nose. She only gets halfway there before stretching the olive fabric out and looking at the design created by the muted gold threads. “Sunflowers,” she whispers, eyes darting up to meet his. “This is mine.”

It is. The same scarf she’d given to him at the football game. He’d worn it home and never returned it. How could he, when it was the only part of her he could hold as close as he wanted?

Ben pets the wool folds. “It’s a little late to ask, but can I keep it?”

“I can’t believe you’ve had it all this time.” She snuggles it close to her nose and breathes deeply. “It smells like you now. I guess that means it’s yours.”

The permission to possess it makes his blood heat. His hand engulfs the one she has wrapped around the end, pulling both toward his mouth. He kisses, then nips her wrist through the fabric. “Mine.”

Rey’s breath hitches, and she squirms on his lap. “Yours.” She tilts her head to the side. The motion would reveal her gland if not for the scarf. “Like me.”

Possessive pride swells in his heart. It makes another part of him grow too. Rey moans at the sensation. She lowers herself to his lips, kissing him deeply, fingers twirling into his hair. When she pulls back, she stares into his eyes. “Ben, could I. . .could I mark you?”

That surprises him. Alphas mark Omegas all the time, according to the people he’s spoken with. Omegas only mark the chosen ones: mates. “You-you want to?”

She blushes prettily. It highlights the terrible ache in his chest: terrible in the sense that he knows his heart already belongs to the woman sitting in his lap, locked around his knot, and telling him she wants to claim him. It’s terrible because he’s wasted so much time in being away from her when they could have had this together.

That changes now.

“Do it.” He leans his head to the side.

“What?”

“You want to claim me, Rey? I’m yours,” he tells her. “I have been since the first week of class we had together. I thought then that I was too old, that I would hold you back from exploring your restoration degree, your goals. I couldn’t be the thing that stopped you. Even if I wanted you more than I’d ever wanted anything.”

He’s intent on telling her every time he wanted to kiss her, every time she warmed his heart when she smiled at him, every time he wanted to carry her away and make love to her, but Rey’s lips cut him off.

This kiss is the gentlest of them all, barely more than a brush of her mouth against his. Then she whispers, “I love you, too. Since the first.”

Her lips ghost down the side of his throat, fingers pulling his shirt collar out of the way so she can reach his mating gland. Even without the mid-coupling passion, he can feel it throb dully. If she bites him now, she can truly claim him.

“My Alpha.” She licks his gland, and he shivers. “My Ben.”

Then he sees gold for the second time that day.

* * *

“It’s last call.” The bartender is already stacking freshly cleaned glasses below the bar. “Another?”

Hux swirls the fragrant liquid in his glass, tilts his left wrist to check the time, and downs the remaining contents. “Why not?”

His refill is poured immediately—which happens when you’re the only one at a hotel bar close to midnight—and he slides the American Express card across the counter. “Go ahead and close the tab.”

At the very least, he’s going to utilize Ben’s platinum card as he was instructed: _whatever you want. Treat yourself._

He’d damn well earned it. Arriving back at the car, he’d found them still entwined and naked from the waist down, though Ben’s coat had found its way back onto Rey’s slender frame.

It wasn’t so much the position he’d found them in that was the bothersome part. It was the smell. Getting in the car was like stepping into a sauna that’d just hosted an orgy. The air had felt. . .damp. And while they basked in their glorious Alpha-Omega _eau de fucking_ , it forced Hux to loop his shirt collar over his ears and breathe through his impromptu mask.

Awkward silence didn’t begin to cover their lack of communication as he merged onto the highway.

Luckily, the hotel he’d found them—with a king sized bed and jacuzzi tub, as he predicted they may need—was only two exits from the rest stop. A good thing, too, because by the time they’d arrived, they were beginning to rock restlessly against each other again.

As he scribbles a forged signature on the merchant slip, the bartender calls out to a passing housekeeper. “Again, Dawn?”

The woman nods, color mottling her cheekbones. “I’m bringing two sets this time. Maybe it’ll get them through until Snap takes over.”

Interest piqued by the exchange, Hux squints at the items in the woman’s hands. Sheets. Given the relatively empty parking lot and the current circumstances, there’s only one room to which those linens can belong. “Those for 447?” When the woman looks like she’s going to feed him a line about client privacy, he adds, “It’s my boss’s room. I can take them up. You don’t have to deal with. . .all that.”

She pauses, pink cheeks darkening. “It was quite a sight,” she admits, though is quick to add, “but he tipped well. Extremely well.”

Hux slides from his barstool and crosses to her, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. He fingers out a fifty, judges her expression and her hold on the sheets, then adds a second Grant. They trade materials and goodnights before parting; then Hux stumbles to the elevator bay.

As he waits, he rotates through annoyance and giddiness, though the latter has to be the result of all the gin he’s had. It can’t be that he’s actually. . .happy for his boss? Sure, he’s long held the private belief that Ben’s needed a solid lay and the evening seems to be going well for him. There’s a smidge of “you did it, bruh” pride bumping around in his chest. But now that he’s found the girl, Ben’s surely going to become even more intolerable, right?

His thoughts carry him through the elevator ride and the walk to the room he’d booked for them. Sighing, he raps his knuckles against the door. “Benjamin?”

On the other side of the door, there’s laughter mixed with cursing, the sound of fumbled footsteps and the smack of something colliding with the door’s face. Hux sways back at the sharp sound, then again when the door is yanked open.

“Wasn’t expecting you.”

Ben’s bare chest glistens, wet with who knows what. Hux isn’t about to ask. “I thought I’d save the poor housekeeper another shock.”

His boss rubs the back of his neck, shivering when he brushes over the red gland there. A milky substance oozes from it, and he notices it’s been punctured in several places. He’s been bitten. Marked.

Hux shudders, then smiles at the absurdity of it all. Why is there so much liquid involved in Alpha-Omega couplings? He passes the sheets to Ben, who cradles them against his pecs. “Try and ration these.”

Ben’s smile is toothsome to the point of wolfishness. “No promises there. I’m not sure if we’ll ever stop.”

“Ben?” Rey’s voice calls in a pitch that is less a question and more a demand.

He glances over his shoulder, eyes darkening. “Coming, love.” Then he turns back. “Thank you for these. Goodnight.”

Hux opens his mouth to object, a brow hiking as Ben moves to close the door. “‘Love’? Isn’t that a little fast, Ben?”

“I’ve loved her for years,” he returns, voice soft and low. “And I’m going to make sure she knows with every breath I take, that half of it belongs to her.”

He lets Ben close the door before rolling his eyes. What a sap. Though that’s not exactly a surprise. Now that he thinks about it, the only picture he has on his desk is from a college football game. Hux had always thought the group photo was a way for him to remember the clutch of friends he’d found during his time in grad school. Now that he’s drawing the photo in his mind’s eyes, he remembers: Rey and Ben sitting amongst their friends, her head on his shoulder and Ben’s face tilted, not at the camera, but down at her smile.


End file.
